With only a microscope and a collection of birds, taxidermist Roxie Laybourne became the world’s first forensic ornithologist. The “feather detective” was on the case, examining pieces of plumage to solve mysteries. From bird strikes that caused plane accidents to homicide investigations, no case was too big. In the process, Roxie changed the world of aviation safety and crime investigation forever. Even now, feathers are unraveling a new type of mystery, as scientists from the Bird Genoscape Project use them to map the migratory routes of birds.

Guests:

Chris Sweeney – Journalist and author of “The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne”

Kristen Ruegg – Co-Director of the Bird Genoscape Project and Associate Professor of Biology at Colorado State University

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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We’re going back to the Moon. The planned March 2026 launch of Artemis II is the first crewed mission to the moon since 1972. Historic as it is, it isn’t the only lunar event creating a stir at NASA. Two seismometers are to be delivered to Schrödinger’s Crater in a mission called The Farside Seismic Suite, in which the instruments will measure moonquakes and record the possible impact of asteroid 2024 YR4 on lunar surface. Meanwhile, studies of the sun are heating up. The so-called PUNCH mission, a four-satellite constellation that will create an image of the sun’s corona and solar winds, may help us better understand what drives solar storms and how we can protect Earth from their energetic blasts.

Guests: 

Eugene Cernan – Apollo 17 astronaut

Harrison "Jack" Schmitt – Geologist and Apollo 17 astronaut

Andrew Rivkin – Planetary astronomer at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University

Ceri Nunn – Lunar seismologist and planetary scientist, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Ryan French – solar physicist, at the Laboratory for Atmospheric & Space Physics, Boulder, Colorado, and author of “Space Hazards: Asteroids, Solar Flares and Cosmic Threats”

Craig DeForest – Heliophysicist, Southwest Research Institute, principal investigator on NASA’s  PUNCH mission

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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There are benefits to chilling out. When we cool superconductors to 460℉ degrees below zero, they acquire extraordinary properties that help run quantum computers. Can artificially cooling human bodies also provide profound benefit? Some cryonics startup companies say yes, promising “life after death” through cryogenic freezing. While it’s one thing to freeze all the cells in a body, it is another to revive them. What happens, for instance, to memories when brains thaw? While we gauge how low human body temperatures can go, new research suggests another form of life could find home in the cooler temperatures of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Find out how NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will investigate whether that moon could support alien microbes. 

Guests:

Steve Austad – Distinguished Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Scientific Director of the American Federation for Aging Research

Olivia Lanes – Global Lead for Quantum Content and Education at IBM Quantum

Austin Green – Post doctoral research associate at Virginia Tech University, and former JPL postdoctoral fellow and affiliate scientist on Europa Clipper

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Correction: An editing error caused a mistake in describing how cold affects inflammation. Contrary to popular belief, at least one study found that cold increases inflammation, at least in the short term.

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Every second, lightning strikes 50 to 100 times somewhere. It can wreak havoc by starting wildfires and sometimes killing people. But lightning also produces a form of nitrogen that’s essential to vegetation. In this episode, we talk about the nature of these dramatic sparks. Ben Franklin established their electric origin, so what do we still not know? Also, why the frequency of lightning strikes is increasing in some parts of the world. And, what to do if you find someone hit by lightning.

Guests:

Thomas Yeadaker – Resident of Oakland, California

Chris Davis – Medical doctor and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Wake Forest University and Medical Director for the National Center for Outdoor Adventure Education

Jonathan Martin –Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Steve Ackerman – Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Peter Bieniek – Professor of Atmospheric and Space Science, University of Alaska, Fairbanks

Descripción en español

Originally aired September 12, 2022

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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The icy-white crust of Arctic permafrost is melting, and increased plant growth is turning the glacial north green. Metals like iron, once locked inside the ice, are leaching into hundreds of Arctic rivers, giving them an orange hue. Vivid changes may catch our eye, yet invisible shifts are also afoot. Microbes locked in the frozen ground since the age of the mammoths can now be revived when they thaw. We’re exploring the consequences of changes in permafrost, how AI may help us better understand Greenland ice loss, and get reactions from scientists about the Trump administration’s attempt to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), one of the premier climate and weather researcher centers in the world.

Guests:

Tristan Caro – Postdoctoral Fellow, Geological and Planetary Sciences Division, California Institute of Technology

Twila Moon – Glaciologist and deputy lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, within the cooperative Institute for Research and Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Abagael Pruitt – Biochemist and ecosystem ecologist, postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Davis

Karina Zikan – Glaciologist and snow hydrologist, PhD candidate at Boise State University

Roland Pease – Science writer and broadcaster often heard on the BBC World Service, and former presenter and host of its program Science in Action

Alan Sealls – Retired broadcast meteorologist, adjust professor at the University of South Alabama and president of the American Meteorological Society

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

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It’s omnipresent on Earth and absent on the Moon. When it’s blowing sand in our eyes or frigid air down our necks, we may curse the wind, but living on a planet without it would be stultifying. Join us as we sail through a discussion with journalist and author Simon Winchester about the many practical and playful uses of wind – from boats to turbines to kites – and how it has shaped history, including the growth of civilization itself.

Guest:

Simon Winchester – Journalist and author of “The Breath Of The Gods: The History and Future of the Wind”

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

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Spewing lava and belching noxious fumes, volcanoes seem hostile to biology. But the search for life off-Earth includes the hunt for these hotheads on other moons and planets, and we tour some of the most imposing volcanoes in the Solar System. 

Plus, a look at how tectonic forces reshape bodies from the moon to Venus to Earth. And a journey to the center of our planet reveals a surprising layer of material at the core-mantle boundary. Find out where this layer was at the time of the dinosaurs and what powerful forces drove it deep below.

Guests:

Samantha Hansen – Geologist at the University of Alabama

Paul Byrne – Associate professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis

Robin George Andrews – Science journalist and author of “Super Volcanoes: What They Reveal about Earth and the Worlds Beyond”

Originally aired May 29, 2023

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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You are getting sleeeepy and open to suggestion. But is that how hypnotism works? And does it really open up a portal to the unconscious mind? Hypnotism can be an effective therapeutic tool, and some scientists suggest replacing opioids with hypnosis for pain relief. And yet, the performance aspect of hypnotism often seems at odds with the idea of it being an effective treatment. 

In our regular look at critical thinking, Skeptic Check, we ask what part of hypnotism is real and what is an illusion. Plus, we discuss how the swinging watch became hypnotism’s irksome trademark.

Guests:

David Spiegel – Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine

Devin Terhune – Reader in the Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths University of London

Originally aired June 27, 2002

Graphic by Shannon Rose Geary

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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You interact with about two-thirds of the elements of the periodic table every day. Some, like carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, make up our bodies and the air we breathe. Yet there is also a class of elements so unstable they can only be made in a lab. These superheavy elements are the purview of a small group stretching the boundaries of chemistry. Can they extend the periodic table beyond the 118 in it now? Find out scientists are using particle accelerators to create element 120 and why they’ve skipped over element 119. Plus, if an element exists for only a fraction of a second in the lab, can we still say that counts as existing?

Guests:

Mark Miodownik – professor of materials and society at the University of College London and the author of “It’s a Gas: The Sublime and Elusive Elements That Expand Our World.”

Kit Chapman – Science historian at Falmouth University, author of “Superheavy; Making and Breaking the Periodic Table.”

Jennifer Pore – Research Scientist of Heavy Elements at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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Science fiction movies force us to face a multitude of end-of-the-world scenarios. Whether the final curtain is dropped by rampaging aliens, killer rocks from space, or virus-infected zombies, these big screen glimpses of a dystopian future are as tantalizing as they are frightening. But one American city seems to be a favorite backdrop for stories of mass destruction. We speak with a cultural critic about why New York City is often the chosen setting for disaster films, and what dystopian fiction reveals about our shifting anxieties about humanity’s future no matter where we live.

Movies discussed include Deep Impact, Escape from New York, Planet of the Apes, King Kong, Cloverfield, Deluge, Failsafe, The Day After Tomorrow, AI: Artificial Intelligence, Contagion, I Am Legend, and Seth’s very own short film: The Turkey that Ate St. Louis

Guest:

Dan Saltzstein – Deputy Editor for Projects and Collaborations, New York Times

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

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